“I’ll close with this: There are tons of people out there who say they’re going to make movies or write books or whatever, and they don’t. Farley is putting his stuff out there and seems to be a good sport about it. I kind of can’t help but respect him.”

“There’s no shortage of quality musical comedy out there, but there’s no one making silly songs quite like Matt Farley, a.k.a. The Toilet Bowl Cleaners. Farley’s written literally tens of thousands of novelty songs over the last eight years or so, putting them up on all the various musical streaming and download services. He publishes under a variety of assumed names, like The Hungry Food Band and The Very Nice Interesting Singer Man. But The Toilet Bowl Cleaners is easily my favorite, with a smiling, unflinching approach to bodily functions and the messes they make. A friend of mine played them for me on a road trip recently, and at first I was extremely put off. But my friend insisted we keep going, and after around 20 songs about farts, diarrhea, and pee, I was dying. The songs are alternately cheerful, angsty, triumphant, and sad, but all are sung with an unflinching earnestness that slowly makes them a true joy to listen to. You can tell Farley has a lot of fun making these songs, and that’s the real pleasure in listening to them. Not every album is great, but some are, especially Never Gonna Flush Again. Here, the artist takes a long look in the bathroom mirror, Windex in hand, and decides never to write poop songs again, no matter how much fans like me clamor for them.”

“A man in Massachusetts has written 88 songs about specific New Jersey towns. Actually, 88 epically, purposefully terrible songs about New Jersey towns.
There are hits like 'Woodbridge is a Heck of a Town' or 'Possibly the Best Song About Union City,' and who could forget 'Isn’t Saddle Brook Great? I Think It Is.'
What would inspire such a thing? And did he really just try to rhyme 'Carasaljo' in his song about Lakewood?
We had questions. Matt Farley of Motern Media had answers.”

“I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen in recent weeks that I’ve been obsessed with the impossibly niche world of a backyard filmmaker from New England, but I’ve also been struggling to recommend how they can best join in the fun. Monsters, Marriage, and Murder in Manchvegas & Don’t Let the Riverbeast Yet You! were stand-out titles I could cite as favorites of his backyard horror comedies, but it isn’t until you fully sink into his catalog, taking in years of development over multiple films and sampling dozens of extratextual novelty songs, that the full significance of those crown jewels becomes clear. That’s a lot to ask of someone who’s likely never heard of Matt Farley before, especially in an era where it’s difficult to successfully recommend even a minutes-long YouTube clip. In that way, Local Legends is a godsend. It summarizes everything that is wonderful, daunting, immense, and trivial about Matt Farley as an outsider artist in a single 70min morsel – twenty years of unfathomable dedication to obsessive pet projects made digestible in just over an hour’s time. Miraculously, that infomercial style self-review of Farley’s back catalog also stands as his most substantial, rewarding work to date – a weirdly philosophical meta-commentary on what it looks like to make underseen, underappreciated art in the internet age. We live in a time where it’s more affordable to produce & publish movies & music than it ever has been before, which means that there are so many amateur voices in the game it’s near impossible to get noticed, even for someone as naturally entertaining as Matt Farley. Local Legends captures the essence of Matt Farley & Motern Media, but it also captures the current state of online self-publishing at large and, by extension, what self-funded D.I.Y. art projects look like in the 2010s. If Matt Farley ever 'makes it big,' it will be because of decades of stubborn dedication & repetition, a ton of hard work for potentially very little reward. It almost doesn’t matter whether or not that happens, though, because he’s already delivered his masterpiece in Local Legends, a movie of and about our time in amateur pop culture.”

“Matt Farley has produced more near-masterpiece music than most artists have produced music period. That is not even taking into consideration Moes Haven, his collaboration with fellow prolific songwriter Tom Scalzo, or the several feature-length films they have made with Charles Roxburgh.”

“Despite the subject matter and the presumed, traditional, rock, make-up of the band’s musicians, the music of MO75 is anything but predictable. Much like The Beatles’ White Album (only obviously better and less messy) the songs are a varied mix of multiple genres. The Big Heist are all multi-instrumentalists who, individually, have different tastes and as this triple collection is a true collaboration, you get elements of rock, folk, pop, rap, punk, grunge and singer-songwriter woven throughout its running time. This keeps the experience of listening to the three volumes back to back consistently exciting and invigorating.”

“In other words, it illustrates how closely the principle of a free internet mirrors that of free speech and should therefore be given serious if not equal value: I do not want to listen to your song about earwax, but I will defend to the death your right to produce it in your basement and distribute it freely online for a return of approximately $2 per annum.”

“It would be unfair for me to include KEEP BEING AWESOME! in a list of beginner recommendations, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the staggering work which at 75 dense musical tracks is Farley’s Finnigan’s Wake. It sounds at first like a novelty album by The Very Nice Interesting Singer Man along the lines of Job Songs, but it slowly morphs into the harrowing journey of a man who goes to different towns and punches people in the face. It’s as weird and funny as it sounds, but also very sad. Like every Farley album, really.”

“Even if I’m not in the mood to listen to something as silly as most of Farley’s music tends to be, I’m always pleasantly surprised to find some shining examples of excellent songwriting. A recent Very Nice Interesting Singer Man album called 'Keep Being Awesome!' has some of the catchiest hooks I’ve heard on a rock album in a long time. It feels very much grounded in his Moes Haven days, as well as other rock bands with a similar style of wit and whimsy, such as They Might Be Giants.
The album also has some dark lyrical content that you wouldn’t expect from the guy who wrote 'Welcome to Fart Town.'”